The present invention relates to devices for carrying or holding maps or the like.
In a number of activities, such as snow skiing or motorcycle riding, the participant has need for quick and easy reference to materials such as maps or written instructions. A multitude of wallets or pouches are known for carrying such papers or other items such as keys, and though these are very commonly used, they are nevertheless especially inconvenient for persons engaged in physical activities such as skiing, motorcycling or bicycling. Because wallets or pouches are carried in the user's pocket, the user must suspend the activity to remove the wallet or pouch, remove the papers to look at them and then reverse the process. While this may seem like a small and tolerable inconvenience, it nevertheless interferes with many sports and other physical activities since by the nature of the activity the participant's hands may not be free to remove a stored map or other document and hold it while reading. A snow skier, for example, desiring to look at a map of ski trails, has to remove his or her gloves and remove the map from a pocket, which may be inconvenient or difficult in adverse weather conditions or difficult terrain. After reading the map, the skier must then reverse these steps before being ready to continue. After the map is read several times in this manner, it tends to deteriorate through exposure to the elements or mishandling.
In an attempt to alleviate this problem, for skiers at least, map holders are available which attach to a ski pole and which provide a spring-loaded retractable ski map, which is coiled within the map holder and which may be pulled out for reading. Devices of this sort are inconvenient because they require the use of both hands to read the map--one to hold the ski pole and one to extract the map. Moreover, such devices are useful only for skiers and do not help the motorcycle rider or bicyclist. Even for snow skiing this type of device is subject to malfunction from snow, ice and cold temperature.